NECKLACE, ENAMEL ON SIL- PUNJAB. the lower Punjab | known abroad, such as the gold-work of But little space is left for a notice of Indian work in wood. This is only known abroad by bibelots, which, though pretty, give no idea of the real strength of the native artificer-his treatment of wood in do Indian jewelry is too vast a subject to be adequate ly treated in so brief and general a sketch as this. The universal custom of putting savings by in the form of gold and silver ornaments necessitates the presence of a silversmith in every village. The wife of a peasant whose gross annual income is but two hundred rupees, all told, and whose house is furnished only with a bed and a few cooking pots, wears on her person from fifty to eighty rupees' worth of ornaments, and other classes in proportion. The nostrils are sometimes pierced and the ears riddled with perforations from top to bottom of the distorted lobes; the ankles are by some castes loaded with heavy, bell-studded fetters, the wear-mestic architecture. To fitly understand ing of which would be considered a grievous punishment by a Western belle; the head is laced with chains, studs, and plates; the arm is loaded sometimes from wrist to shoulder; toe rings are common, and occasionally rings on each finger are connected by chains with a large ornament or gold-set mirror on the back of the hand. All kinds of things are used for ornaments; natural marigolds are set with plates of talc, necklaces of cloves are considered good for the headache, and are certainly pretty; pewter, iron, brass, zinc, copper, glass, horn, shell, and lac are used for bangles, tons of glass and lac being annually worked up for this purpose alone. There is material for a volume in the quaint fancies and superstitions associated with precious stones, each of which is minutely classified in all possible varieties. Each caste and race also wears ornaments of distinctive forms, and though railway travelling has diffused geographical variations, it has by no means suppressed them. Without attempting more than a reference to this subject, it may be fairly said that the jewelry by which India is this it is necessary to see such towns as Ah- of surface-covering could be applied without the intervention of the lathe, it would be a great gain. The domestic charpoy, wedding stool, and spinning-wheel are still the chief native uses of the craft, and among well-to-do people ivory studs and other elaborations are added to their simple forms. Sometimes pretty models of cooking vessels are made in this material for wedding gifts, as also toy-like saucepans in silver or sometimes in bead-work. Obviously, if everybody gave real vessels, the bride would be buried in pots and pans. in a profusion of heavily carved open- | white wood. At Dera Ismail Khan, in the work, the motive of which can scarcely be Punjab, fern-like scrolls of almost incredtraced. The sandal-wood, ivory, and bison- ible minuteness and delicacy are thus prohorn combinations of Vizagapatam are lit-duced on caskets, tables, and a large vatle more than a superior class of stationers' riety of objects, all of which, however, are goods. Nor is the ivory, pewter, and eb- and must be circular. If this fine quality ony mosaic in sandal-wood of the Bombay work-box of a much higher character. At Bijnaur and Nagind (northwest provinces) is localized a curious craft of minute geometrical carving of surface diapers in ebony, in very low relief but beautifully crisp execution. Combs, caskets, trays, envelope boxes, and the like, are the usual forms, but the supply is irregular. At Mainpuri, in the same provinces, a dainty sort of damascening in dark hard wood is done, brass wire being inlaid in salvers, trays, etc., with that infinite fancy of flowing line that never fails the native crafts- Charming and characteristic as are the man. At Hushiarpur, in the Punjab, is a small wares in wood thus briefly degrowing industry of shisham-wood inlaid scribed, there is a higher interest and oftwith ivory and brass. The comparative en better art in Indian applications of freedom of design in this work reminds wood to domestic architecture. There are one of Italian tarsia. For cabinet-work, few Northern towns which can not show panels of any size could be supplied in whole house fronts carved with that peany quantity. The present applications culiarly Oriental elaboration which seems are chiefly desks, work-boxes, cabinets, and to take no thought of time or expense. small articles of furniture. The wood is Balconies, windows, brackets, and cora dark red-brown, something like rose- nices, occurring among stone, brick, or wood, but tougher and stronger. Hushi- lime work, are ornamented with sunk arpur is also strong in turned and lacquer- flowers, enriched mouldings, columns, ed wood-ware. Native house furniture is and pilasters, with a surety, crispness, and exceedingly simple, being limited usually felicity which can only be appreciated to a bed and a stool or two. A part of when seen in their native sunshine. Coneach marriage outfit in Northern India is sidered as construction merely, some cara charpoy (low bedstead), and a quaint, pentry of other nations is perhaps soundhigh-backed, low stool, both of turned er; but even in this respect there is nowood ornamented with lac. Very little thing despicable. The reckless waste of painting on wood is now done, and the lac the once fine forests-which the governsurface, obtained by pressing what is virtu- ment is doing its best to remedy-has ally a stick of colored sealing-wax on the greatly enhanced the price of timber, and revolving object, is a harder and more solid tends to choke a still living craft. The covering than any paint. The heat de-architecture imported by the English has, veloped by friction melts the lac, and farther friction with a bit of bamboo polishes a coat of color which resists dust, the great heat of the hot weather, and the damp of the rains. But there are many refinements in this most simple art. In Sindh and in the Punjab layer upon layer of colored lac of infinitesimal thinness is laid. Then with a stylus these coats are scratched through in a manner analogous to Italian sgraffito. Supposing red to have been laid first, then green, and lastly black, the black is scratched through for green leaves, the green and black for a red flower, and for a white line all are cut through to the Bar however, done more grievous injury than Municipal improvements, too, are often devastations, and the names of active district officers are given to new buildings of uniform hideousness which replace the quaintness, variety, and beauty of a naturally grown native street. There are PERFORATED WINDOW, COPIED IN TEAK FROM THE WINDOW IN YELLOW SANDSTONE IN THE BHUDDER MOSQUE, AHMEDABAD. earnest magistrates capable of calmly ordaining that all new house balconies should be of one pattern, prescribed by the municipal engineer, and there are many who think that when they have reared a clock tower in nineteenth-century British Gothic in the centre of a native city they have taken a serious step in the march of civilization. An example of this folly is to be seen at Amritza, where, overlooking the pool in the centre of which the Golden Temple of the Sikhs seems to swim like a swan, pure and bright in marble and gold, is a red brick clock tower whose offense nothing short of dynamite could fitly purge. There is another in the Chandney Chowk, the picturesque main street of Delhi. But in fairness it must be said that this mistaken notion of improvement is giving way to a juster appreciation of the fitness of things. And if zealous civil officers have occasionally done harm, there are many cases in which their strenuous and welldirected efforts have been the means of preserving interesting industries from extinction and noble monuments from decay. At Muttra, one of the ancient Hin du centres, and at Bulandshahr (northwest provinces), may be seen new buildings richly wrought, and rivalling old work in beauty, which owe their existence entirely to the energy and taste of an officer of the civil service, who is also a learned Oriental scholar, and has the sympathetic gift of inspiring natives of means and position with his enthusiasm for indigenous art. The declared and vigorously enforced policy of the government to use native manufactures for its own needs, instead of constantly ordering stores from England, will stimulate native industry, while art in its higher sense may be benefited by the appointment to the Ministry of Public Works of Mr. T. C. Hope, whose researches in the archæology of Guzerat are well known, and who has an enlightened appreciation of Oriental architecture. The people are so ready to follow the official lead, it is of more importance here than elsewhere that government should at least be sympathetic on this subject. In the Punjab, at all events, the tradition of good timber construction, rich and fanciful in design, still survives. In There is no reason why the skill and fancy of Indian wood-carvers should not be known abroad by large work suitable for architectural uses as well as by draw Southern India there is nothing to match the picturesque streets of Northern towns, with their projecting galleries, pretty balcony windows, and elaborately fretted cornices. It would be a curious and interest-ing-room ornaments. A country may be ing inquiry to trace the variations of woodbuilding from the quaint Mongolian temples near Simla southward, the styles changing as dialects and language change. Broadly, the most striking result of such an inquiry would be a conviction of the predominance of the late Saracenic shaft and mihrab, which, like an Aaron's rod, seem to be swallowing up more characteristic Hindu forms, where the square pillar, though chamfered into octagons and cunningly notched and sculptured, virtually remains square. In Northern India Sikhs, Jains, and other Hindus have accepted this soft, half Italian-looking form without reserve, and it is to be found in the purely Hindu towns of Maharashtra, Poona, and Nassick, as well as in Guzerat, where, however, the Hindu sculptor made a harder fight against Mussulman influ ence. The Punjab contains many varieties of the interesting work of the constructive carpenter, as he is called in contradistinction to the village carpenter proper, whose immemorial allotment of labor is to make the agricultural implements and simple furniture of rustic life. But in order to realize its charm it is necessary to brave many evil odors, and to lose one's self in the labyrinthine streets and alleys of native cities, where weatherworn, richly carved timbers nearly meet overhead, where the dyer hangs out his cloths fresh from the dye vat in brilliantly tinted streamers, and the pigeons flutter and perch along the dusty mouldings, while the green parrots shoot like live emeralds from the clear blue of the coldweather sky into the dark shadows under the fretted eaves. rich in wit and wealth and yet inherit no birthright of its own in the great genealogy of artistic style, and need not think it shame to go abroad in search of adornments for its necessarily eclectic architecture. There is much that the Indian craftsman can do which can not, to put it in homely phrase, be done anywhere else under heaven for love or money. The best that he is capable of has scarcely by this generation been asked for. And when, humbly anxious to please, he has, with great pains and labor, produced his copy of European work, we turn round and abuse him for his misdirected industry. But is the fault entirely his? He is the least speculative of mortals, and only makes what will sell. He is innocent of many of the fine sentiments attributed to him, and his whole being is by no means centred in poetry and metaphysics; but he has wonderful hands, and is born heir to fine decorative traditions. In this matter of carven wood-work skillful architects could find many details which might be built into modern domestic constructions with admirable effect. An interesting experiment was tried recently by Mr. Lockwood De Forest, of New York, who, during a recent protracted visit to this country, organized a band of the wood-carvers of Ahmedabad. Among the works wrought by these men may be instanced copies of the beautiful windows in perforated sandstone of the Bhudder, which may be considered as types of the best qualities of Indian design. Such demands made by artists and those who care for art can be fully met, and would do more than anything else to convince the people of the folly of neglecting their own plastic forms. ON THE EDGE OF THE MARSH. IN NOVEMBER. IN JUNE. Fair and green is the marsh in June; The blue-flag fades; and through the heat, CANA THE HOME OF HIAWATHA. ANADA in the middle of the seventeenth century was surely rough and frontier-like enough, yet it was only the threshold of an unexplored region whose vastness was then inestimable, and whose promises of adventure and wealth were very alluring. The French for a long time after the first colonization on the Lower St. Lawrence had neither energy nor resources for advancing beyond Montreal, the very existence of which was a continuous miracle. Finally, however, a few traders or hunters penetrated westward, and excelled each other in bringing back glowing accounts of a rich region and of hordes of Indians. This fired the adventurous zeal of the Jesuit Allouez, who organized a band of Indian followers, and sailed up to the head of Lake Huron. Here, at the Sault Ste. Marie, he " threw himself boldly among the savages, relying on his powers of persuasion to win their confidence, and the purity of his motives to secure success." This was in 1665. In May, 1673, two other ardent Frenchmen followed his footsteps-men whose names are now immortal in the North west. They were Fathers Marquette and Joliet. Their company consisted of five other Frenchmen and some Indians, their means of transportation were two bark canoes, and their provisions a small supply of maize and smoked meat. Passing the posts at St. Mary's and at Michilimackinac, at the exit of Lake Michigan, they met Father Allouez at the Bay of Puans, now Green Bay, and there prepared to go in search of a great river reported by the Indians as existing further west. It does not concern me to follow them in their voyage along the Wisconsin to and down the Mississippi. Some, discarding the semi-mythical story of De Soto, have credited Marquette with being the very first white man to discover this. greatest of our water-courses. All honor to Père Marquette, but he left to a less worthy successor, Father Hennepin, the first exploration of the region where I wish to take my readers-the Upper Mississippi. When Joliet, leaving Marquette at his prayers and preaching among the Miamis, worked his way back to Quebec, he found |